"Apple just posted its hotly-anticipated Q2 2013 earnings, and the company posted a profit of $9.5b on revenues of $43.6b, compared to $11.6b in profit on $39.2b in revenue this quarter last year and $13.1b in profit on $54.5b in revenue last quarter. That's right in line with the company's guidance from last quarter. Most importantly, iPhone sales are fairly flat year-over-year. Apple sold 37.04 million in Q2 2013 versus last year's 35.1 million, a modest growth of seven percent. iPad sales for the quarter were 19.5 million, up a massive 65 percent from last year's 11.8 million, but the average selling price (ASP) dropped fairly steeply year-over-year, likely due to the introduction of the cheaper iPad mini."

Listening to some of the coverage you'd think Apple had a bad quarter. The company makes an insane amount of money and is the second most valuable company on the planet (which from a philosophical perspective is bizarre) , and yet people are talking about it as if it's sinking.

As was pointed out in a BBC interview, if Apple continued it's rate of growth from the last 10 years over another 5, it would be worth more than Australia. Utterly unrealistic.

Putting down Job's contribution to salesmanship is disingenuous. Phones sucked till the iPhone (despite it's glaring faults) caught an entire industry off guard. The prolific use of Apple laptops by qualified techies in all industries should point to the fact that the company isn't just about selling dumbed down products.

Aside from his RDF super powers, Jobs instilled an uncompromising focus on a vary narrow product range in the company. He also had a fundamental philosophy of "betting the company" every couple of years on a new product. The comment about his zero-sum game is right, it was all or nothing. The product will be amazing or the company dies, no other way around it.

Apple without Jobs will quite possibly be a different animal. I agree that Cook will take a more measured approach.

This bizarre spectre of doom due to a lowering of share price, that's cast on a company that is sitting on more money than it knows what to do with just doesn't make sense.